User blog:Bachoru/Dominion Tier List
Hey guys, welcome to my Dominion Tier list. It's a more-less complete guide now, but still may be subject to changes, and I will check back regularly to see the comments, suggestions, etc. Please note that like with all tier lists, this is just my personal view, might be biased based on my skill/luck with certain champions, and overall is here just to have people argue about it. Enjoy! Now, without further ado, the List: Tier 1 This tier contains champions that are very strong (read OP if you like naming champions OP) on the Crystal Scar. Generally will be filled by champions who fit Dominion roles best (mobile champs capable of capturing points fast and point defenders), or champions whose weaknesses (often a weak laning phase) are greatly diminished on this map/game mode. Tier 1: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Tier 2 These champs are the “Nothing Special” category. They are outshined by tier 1 but are still viable picks, and often they are a good counter pick against some specific team comp (Draft pick). Tier 2: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Tier 3 Bad- these champions are the opposites of Tier 1. The fast paced style of Dominion doesn’t allow them to shine, and they typically have strong lane presence, which is useless on Dominion. Tier 3: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Important note: The tiers are sorted alphabetically, although might be found on the bottom of tier 2 he’s actually closer to tier 1 than, for example, , who is found early in the list. In the future I might make more tiers, but this is for the sake of simplicity, and also I find it easier to find any champion if they're not random. If you have any suggestions, please post them. I will update this guide/blog/whatever you call it for more tier placements and explanations of the tiers, some in-depth, some just thoughts. It's mostly based on my experience with the champion on Dominion, as well as my personal skill (I play a terrible , but I've seen great things done by her, that's why I'll only touch basics, even if she's tier 1) Why is Champion XY in Tier Z, what makes him good/bad on Dominion? Tier 1 She is a monster in Dominion, her skillset allows her to deal huge amounts of damage and disappear in the fog of war or brush thanks to her Shroud. You can get a Rylai’s extremely quickly, or basically any other item, and with a full build Akali is hard to kill and hard to not die to. She is also probably the most bursty viable champion in here, so you can just kill those Lightbringers, Sweepers and Oracle’s. *Suggested item build: Mercury’s Treads/Sorcerer’s Shoes, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Lich Bane, Hextech Gunblade, Guinsoo’s Rageblade/Void Staff/Abyssal Scepter/any other item *Summoner spells: Ignite, Flash, Exhaust As a valuable turret defender or disrupter, Alistar fully deserves Tier 1. He can easily hold a turret for an extended period of time with the use of summoner spells, health relics, his Triumphant Roar, and his Headbutt is a natural point disrupter. His pulverize can wipe out minion waves while disrupting champions as well, and his ult makes sure your point survives another 6 seconds. His itemization is similar to SR, Trinity tank Alistar is what I would suggest, AP is no longer a viable choice. *Suggested item build: Sheen, Mercury’s Treads, Trinity Force, Warmog’s Armor, Sunfire Cape, Atma’s Impaler, Force of Nature/Odyn’s Veil *Summoner spells: Garrison, Promote, Flash, Exhaust Mundo was a pleasant surprise for me- his Dominion potential is terrific. Despite the regeneration nerfs his healing is insane, and he’s very hard to out-bot. I personally start with a Giant’s Belt and just regenerate tons of HP on bot, harassing my enemies and controlling the relics. Once you get Warmog’s and Atma’s, people will drop dead before you and you won’t even notice. His Cleaver is also a great single target disrupter, and his Burning Agony hits the minion wave hard. *Suggested item build: Giant’s Belt->Warmog’s Armor, Mercury’s Treads, Spirit Visage, Atma’s Impaler, Force of Nature, Phantom Dancer/Stark’s Fervor/Wit’s End *Summoner spells: Ghost, Exhaust, Flash, Garrison A powerful backdoorer, taking points at least halfway down before enemies can sufficiently react and running away extremely easily. Because of her base stats and damage, she doesn’t need to focus on itemizing damage so much and can focus on her running more. Also, her Q hits stealth champions, use it against Twitch and Akali (Akali only in a group, you can’t 1v1 anyone except Twitch). Simply the fact that you CAN use Q notifies you of a nearby stealth unit. *Suggested item build: Boots of Mobility, Rejuvenation Bead, Sheen, Priscilla's Blessing, Rabadon's Deathcap, Lich Bane, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Zhonya's Hourglass *Summoner spells: Ghost, Exhaust, Revive, Ignite Ezreal is a very valuable pick for Dominion, mostly because of his versatility. He can be played as solo bot defender, duo bot pusher/harass, constant top fighter and even backdoorer/runner. His ultimate can assist from bottom to top and vice versa, and it can make all the difference in a balanced fight. Abusing the range of his spells to counter pushes and harass enemies over walls can make you an annoying pest that nobody is fast enough to catch. His other strength is that he can be built both AD, AP and even hybrid, based on team compositions. If the enemy team has Jax, Rammus, Teemo, and two champions who started with a Chain vest, you can just go AP and deal huge damage anyway. *Suggested items-almost any combination of AD and AP items will work. I'm not a pro Ez, so I can't say what the best ones are. *Summoner spells- Flash, Ignite, Ghost, Exhaust, Garrison Gangplank is an offtank like many others- he has a lot of physical damage to offer, and he can complete his build pretty fast. The main reason for him being tier 1 is obviously his ultimate-with an area larger than the capture point radius, GPs ult will make a point uncapturable for around 10 seconds, enough for a teammate to reach. *Suggested item build: Choice Boots, Trinity Force, Warmog’s Armor, Atma’s Impaler, Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer *Summoner spells: Ghost, Exhaust, Ignite, Flash, Garrison Garen’s main strength are small skirmishes, where he can survive to deal tons of damage. He’s a very valuable asset to a team if played correctly. Garen’s main role is top defender- once you capture Windmill, Garen should be able to hold it against 2 people, at least until his team comes to help. His Q speed buff is also nice for moving around the map *Suggested item build: Brutalizer, Mercury’s Treads/Ninja Tabi, Warmog’s Armor, Atma’s Impaler, Force of Nature, Youmuu’s Ghostblade, Entropy *Summoner spells: Exhaust, Garrison, Ghost, Promote his turrets are great defenders, and with good awareness he can even defend the point while away (taking relics, scouting etc.). Even though pushing is not as useful here, his turrets can help conserve a huge minion wave for capturing a point, this is good especially if the point is defended by an enemy champion. He is also one of the few caster champions with good Odyn’s Veil synergy, and his itemization stays unchanged from SR. Quick note on point defending: Putting your turrets from opposite sides of a point very close to the center will make them attack anyone who tries to capture the point. If they are melee, they have almost no means of destroying your small turrets without taking agro from the capture point, and any capturing is immediately interrupted by the small turrets. If you don’t need both turrets in lane, put one of them in the middle (to interrupt relic captures), or into bushes enemies are likely to cross, acting as wards, slows (when you get Rylai’s), harass, and also interrupters of Mobility boots and Rammus’ powerball. *Suggested item build: Prospector's Ring, Boots-> Sorcerer's Shoes, Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Rabadon's Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass *Summoner spells: Garrison, Promote, Heal, Flash, Exhaust As he counters AD DPS very well, because of his dodge, spammable stun, synergy with hextech gunblade for healing, and high bursts of damage on AP Jax, I think he deserves Tier 1. *Suggested… nvm I don’t play him and I think almost any combo of AD, AP and tanky items should work, and summoner spells depend on the occasion He is a monster of a defender, with a tanky build he can hold a point until he dies, and a few seconds after that as well. His ult is a mass disrupt as well as a finisher, his Q is faraway interrupt, W huge AoE damage, and the increased mana reg help him spam much more. *Suggested item build: Sorcerer’s Shoes, tanky AP items (Rylai’s, Banshee’s, Zhonya’s, Abyssal etc.), Rabadon *Suggested summoner spells: Garrison, Flash, Ignite He has a weak pre-6 game, but after that he can really dominate. He has no particular synergy with most mana regen items, so the extra regen is always nice, and he can easily interrupt points and get away with it. Similar to Akali in role, but a tad more mobile and a tad less OP. *Suggested stuff: I don’t play him too much, go for a bunch of AP and some tankiness. Summoner spells are choice Her ult and Q are good for ~3 ppl-perfect for Dominion. With an ally, you can kill, use abilities again and kill again, and your point holding power is almost as insane as assaulting. She’s also pretty mobile and hard to kill once she gets Rylai’s and Gunblade. *Suggested stuff: Gunblade, Sorc, AP items Has a weaker laning phase and arguably the strongest ranged AD carry late game. Here you can skip the laning phase and go straight for defending bot and pushing, or assaulting top. Both paths are viable, just don’t always follow a strict order on items, and build tanky. *Suggested items: Frozen Mallet, Berserker’s Greaves, Wit’s End, Atma’s Impaler, Sanguine blade He’s a great defender who can dish out surprising damage with trinity while still staying alive. He can also interrupt point and relic captures with saplings, and has enough CC to hold enemies in place for the point/ally to finish them off. *Suggested item build: Trinity Force, Warmog’s, Randuin’s, Odyn’s Veil, Mercury, etc. An ordinary melee DPS champion just like any other- with a 5 second confusion ult that not only enables you to tip the scales of a close fight but also works well with a backdoorer. This is the only reason he’s more useful for your team than other melee DPS, really. *Suggested item build: Tanky DPS, atmog and stuff He’s a powerful backdoorer with his ult, great point assaulter for the same reason, and the fact that he has 2 high damage physical abilities makes him a good counter to Jax/Rammus who benefit from people AAing you. Again, melee DPS (ability focused, but melee DPS nevertheless) with a unique skill that’s more useful than what other people will provide. *Suggested item build: A bunch of AD with some MS, tankiness, CDR and CrC. Youmuu’s, IE, CDR boots etc. Her greatest weakness-laning phase- is removed in Dominion. She is a bursty champion viable both AP and AD (played her twice in a row, AD then AP, both getting a victory and bronze badge for me), depending on your allies and enemies. She also has a speed up, and her Q scales with enemy max health, making her a useful counter for high hp enemies, abundant in Dominion. *Suggested item build(s): **AD: Berserker's Greaves, Trinity Force, Phantom Dancer, Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, Infinity Edge (this build is insanely expensive and strong both. The second PD and IE are luxury items, for long games only). **AP: Sorcerer's Shoes, Rabadon's Deathcap, Lich Bane, Deathfire Grasp, Void Staff, Hextech Sweeper *Summoner spells: Ghost, Exhaust, Ignite, Flash He is a god here. This is due to several reasons: *Mobility- Rammus’ powerball is well-known to be the highest MS buff in-game. With Priscilla’s Blessing, Ghost, Revive, Powerball, mobility/swiftness boots and Speed Shrines, he can get to the enemy side of the map before you can say “An ally has been slain”. *Utility- he has a strong CC in the form of his taunt, that can take out solo defenders from the safety of their points. On SR, taunting only one opponent makes him less valuable than the AoE CC of Nunu, Galio, Shen, Amumu, etc. Powerball is a AoE knockback, useful for interrupting channeled abilities, captures, or just disrupting teammates. His W makes him hard to kill, and painful to focus him by the dominant AD champions here. And his ultimate of course is great for small fights, as it moves with him. It can also be used to disrupt team captures safely under your point. *Itemization and Damage- two sections really, but I decided to unite them because they depend on each other. *On Dominion, new items were released, some old were removed and some items are more (warmog’s)/less (tear of the goddess) effective than on SR. For most ranged champions especially, but some melee as well, the removal of Banshee’s Veil hurt-the possible CC it blocked was more important than damage reduction. However, Rammus enjoys this new item much more than BV: it soaks up damage from AoE abilities or damage in 1v1 situations, because other than that Rammus shouldn’t be focused (if he is you’re lucky, the enemy team is totally clueless). Defensive Ball Curl makes people die if they attack you, and Odyn’s makes people die if they throw magic damage at you. Lots of choices left for them. *A problem some tanks have is the lack of damage/hard to itemize damage (shen is a perfect example of this). Rammus is far from ignorable tho. He has an AoE damage skill and his ult is also constant AoE damage. They both scale with AP and deal magic damage, so building some MPen and AP is never a bad idea (Abyssal Scepter is one very viable option). But that’s not all he has! You see a huge taunt and a resistance steroid that shames Godzilla? I see a 3 second armor reduction and a 40 AD bonus (his passive turns W into a mini-Wuju style). Building Phantom Dancer for increased mobility is a way of playing runner Rammus, but in fact it also scales extremely well with his boosted AD from all the armor he naturally has and builds. Building Atma’s increases your AD, and as it gives Armor itself, your AD is increased even further. Sunfire Cape, Thornmail, Odyn’s Veil and DBC all do high magic damage, especially to those who fight you. Randuin’s Omen, another nice Armor (read: AD) bonus also slows enemies’ AS, making it even harder for them to kill you. *Suggested item build: Choice Boots, Warmog's Armor, Randuin's Omen/Sunfire Cape, Odyn's Veil/Force of Nature, Atma's Impaler, Priscilla's Blessing/Phantom Dancer. *Summoner spells: Revive (+mastery), Ghost, Exhaust, Garrison, Flash *Summary: Rammus is great on Dominion because of his mobility, natural tankiness and easy itemization, defense and offense both easily acquired. There is literally no feature on Dominion that makes him worse on SR and his playstyle/kit fits Dominion’s small fights perfectly. He is fit for skirmishes, as his CC is suitable to destroy 1 person and his AoE can damage people around him. His dash actually doesn’t make him much more mobile, as it can’t cross many walls, but with a offtank build (atmog+trinity+brutalizer) he’s a pain to deal with. *Suggested item build: Atmog, trinity, Youmuu’s, Mercury etc. He’s also suited for skirmishes, interrupting points and killing enemies with an ally’s help. All I have to say of him, honestly haven’t seen many around as of yet. *Suggested stuff: what you do usually as Rumble, I guess Another stealth champion, he excels at many aspects of this game mode. His blink makes him almost uncatchable, and his JitB are actually very powerful when built AP. Only 1-2 are enough to cut the life of a squishy champion in half, and they can be set up in certain locations to ambush and kill enemies. His clone can also be used for scouting and keeping enemies busy while you’re capturing a point or just joking around. *Suggested item build: Shaco can be built AP, or AD, or Hybridish. On SR you'll see mainly AD Shaco, but AP Shaco is viable on Dominion. I'm not a Shaco player myself, so I won't even try to include an item build to avoid confusion of new players *Summoner spells: Won't talk about these either, only mentioning Rally as a good AP Shaco spell He can start with a catalyst and head for bot, where he can just push the turret, annoy the enemies and farm, get back for boots and be unkillable. Baiscally what he does on SR, only with a shorter vulnerable laning phase. *Suggested item build: Odyn’s, Swiftnss boots, Rylai’s, FoN, Frozen Heart She’s a powerful point defender and her Starcall will both mutilate the minion wave and damage all your enemies, revealing them via Sweeper and amplifying all magic damage they take, and as your enemies will often go for a lot of armor, this can easily reduce them to almost 0 MR. Build her tanky mage, defend bottom and assist teammates with your ult and you’ll be an asset all your enemies will hate. *Suggested item build: Odyn’s, Ionian/Sorc, Frozen Heart/Randuin’s, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, Rabadon’s Deathcap, Morello’s Evil Tome, Lich Bane, Abyssal Scepter, Hextech Sweeper *Summoner spells: Garrison, Flash, Exhaust, Promote, Ignite He fills a similar role to Heimerdinger: defend points against multiple enemies with your ranged poke and especially your deadly Noxious Traps (or mushrooms of death). AP Teemo with some CDR is the only viable choice really, as well as some tanky items. His main strength on Dominion is that because of all the map movement going on, people are like to be set back by his traps. Also, it is more predictable where it is a good idea to trap, and because the map is smaller his traps can cover a much bigger portion of it. *Suggested item build: Sorcerer's Shoes, Nashor's Tooth, Hextech Sweeper, Malady, Zhonya's Hourglass, Rabadon's Deathcap *Summoner spells: Exhaust, Flash, Ghost, Ignite, Garrison He’s an AD burst champion with good mobility, and on Dominion he’ll find it easier to avoid CC juking into fog of war and brushes. He fits the Point assaulter role very well, and will be a powerful asset to your team’s skirmishes later in the game *Suggested item build: Youmuu’s, otherwise more-less pure AD with some survivability if you need it *Summoner spells: Exhaust, Ghost, Garrison, Rally Ranged DPS champ that doesn’t proc on-hit effects and won’t be so greatly weakened by AS slows, has good harass and CC and is really tanky, what more to ask for a point assaulter? He can also spam up a ToG at the start of the game to make the Mana-selling company mad, and his damage reduction, slows and MS buff are all valuable on Dominion. *Suggested item build: Manamune, The Brutalizer, choice boots, Frozen heart, Odyn’s veil, etc. *Summoner spells: Whatever your heart desires, it’s really very open on this one and depends on what you want to be better at. He has ghouls that will interrupt your enemies’ captures, protect him, damage enemies, heal him, block skillshots for him, increase his own damage and reduces the damage he takes, all while he’s pounding on you or capturing a point. He’s an undying point defender and an undying point assaulter, and just when you think you’re gonna kill him he comes back and kills you. He’s very powerful and Dominion mana regen make other mana regen items obsolete, so you can get trinity ASAP. *Suggested item build: Trinity Force, Mercury’s Treads, Warmog’s Armor, Atma’s Impaler, other tanky items to your heart’s desire *Summoner spells: Exhaust, Garrison, Ghost Tier 2 These champions have their strengths and weaknesses. Often they lack mobility, or killing power, or rely on a strong laning phase, but still they have aspects that make them unique and important to their team. Tier 3 These champions are too lacking to be good picks in most cases. If you need someone to defend against multiple people, often some of these will be good, but in the spread out Dominion fights AoE is often a weakness, which is why most champions are here. , , -they need a lot of mana (read:blue buff), and their AoE is wasted here. They also lack reliable CC. , , , -high burst champions generally shine early-mid game, and these especially rely on dominating their lane to get an advantage. Veigar also needs to farm minions with Q, something he can’t do on Dominion. They’re also too squishy to survive the tanky DPS, and as was mentioned before, their burst is not high enough to actually kill. , , , - these AD carries are great on SR, but on dominion they are really not great picks. They all lack hard CC (Tristana’s knockback is often a negative for her), MF has useless AoE and loses her farming advantage, Cait has easily dodge-able skillshots and loses her lane advantage, Corki no longer blinds and just seems pretty weak in general. Their dashes also don’t matter so much on dominion, as they have high cooldowns so you need to be careful when to use them, and basically picking one of these is just a waste of your team’s potential. Kog, Urgot, Ezreal etc. are better picks for this role anyway , , - heavy AoE damage? Yes please! ON SR!!! Dominion is no place for channeled ults such as Nunu’s and Fiddle’s, and Kennen also seems kinda wasted here (but I’m not fully settled on him being tier 3 yet). This is basically what there is to be said of all these champs. Tier 2 wasn’t touched too much, you’ll find all sorts of champs there, Melee DPS, Supports, tanks and Ranged DPS/AP carry that were in between tier 1 and 3. Who is your champion and what does he do? Defender He will defend a point an make sure you keep it against all odds (and by all odds I mean 2 people). He will typically rush to bottom at the start, but later on he will often be found sitting on the enemy bot point after your team captured it, or unbelievably holding windmill against all those Akalis. Defenders will often carry Garrison and/or Promote, as it helps save the turret from the enemy team and/or relieve the turret(or point, whatever) from the enemy minion wave pressure. The best ones for this role and what they excel at: Heimerdinger: Once he captures a point he will have little trouble holding off against 2 enemies, and he should even manage 3. A very powerful trick: Ult when they focus your turrets, to heal them full. Zhonya’s when they focus you, always staying in range of the turrets. Heal the turrets once they refocus them. Pentakill. Heim will do little more than this, but he can also push a turret and his turrets are practical afk defenders of points. If a melee champion tries to take the point, he must destroy them first (else he will be interrupted), taking point hits instead. If they get low, ult them from across the map and watch the kills stack up. Teemo: He’s cute, and he can hold points well. He can trap the whole map, and tanky Teemo holds bot like there’s no tomorrow. Trap where the minions will land, and if you’re a pro you can even trap your point so that the enemies will start to channel then get interrupted. He fills the defender role of Heimerdinger, but performs it quite differently: he’s a global annoyance, slowing enemies when they collect health relics and damaging them when they collect speed shrines. Maokai: He can do enough damage to destroy minion waves and make enemies fear him, and his CC makes him useful in other aspects as well. Alistar: He can do enough damage to destroy minion waves and make enemies fear him, and his CC makes him useful in other aspects as well. Copied from Maokai, they are almost the same (but Mao has more range, makes him a little better). Karthus: Spam your Q, make your enemies regret not getting boots at the start of the game, use E when they come for you, die and kill everyone anyway. If you are pro enough to die in the center of the capture point, you will give it another 7 seconds of immunity. Soraka: Spam your Q, surprise all with your pro harass, silence them if they come for you. Heal, repeat, win. Build lots of CDR and some tanky and enemies will be like “wtf nerf pl0x”. Renekton: E, W, Q, E, rinse, repeat, win. What you do on solo top SR, basically. Also your health is up because of Q and your enemies fear you. He’s also a great assaulter. Yorick: He won’t die and he’ll kill you even if he does. Saving the point at the same time of course. His skillset makes him good for everything. Shaco: Like Teemo, trap everything and make them run around in fear 5 times before they even reach wherever they were going. Trap your point and hold it indefinitely, just don’t neglect some tankiness unless your enemies are dumb enough NOT to buy Stealth revealing stuff. Gangplank, Pantheon, Twisted Fate, Nocturne, Shen, Ezreal, Ashe: Gank/interrupt point captures from afar. Also, if you get low defending a point (bot), make sure an ally comes to help while you feint a recall and instead go teleport to their unguarded point and make them rage. Pantheon and TF are the ones I mean by this. Assaulter This champion needs to be able to do enough damage to kill the defenders while surviving the point, the defender and his CC, and often minions as well. Akali, Jax… all melee DPS do this role well. If you’re coordinated you can also have an ally suppress the point while you butcher your enemies, to prevent the point from damaging you. Almost any champion can assault well, and those who can’t usually can push the minion wave and get the point anyway. Just keep in mind that you DO need damage AND CC AND often a group of people with the right mix of this, and that the defender ALWAYS has the advantage here. Backdoorer/Runner This champion has to run around capturing undefended enemy points. Nothing breaks the 4 people defending Windmill as well as you taking their top/mid (whatever you call it). Either bot will let your bot push, or top will recall (several people uncoordinated usually) and leave it an easy target. A runners greatest tools are mobility and stealth, although the latter is not a requirement. Stealthers: Evelynn, Shaco, Twitch (not a good backdoorer tho, he needs kills) Other runners: Janna, Sona, Zilean, Rammus Important note: Taking a point is nice, but if you can also hold it (with like Shaco’s JitB) you will help your team in more than just your personal score rising. That is why you’ll often want some tanky items on runners, to be able to actually hold off until help arrives. Even if “Help is not coming” you shouldn’t go without a fight, it’s almost never a good occasion to go backdoor once they lost their closest points. Fighters These have more damage and less CC focus, and generally try and succeed at killing most of the people they meet. They can roam around the map destroying whoever they see or help in whatever needs helping (assaults, defense etc.). Good examples are Akali, Jax, Poppy, Melee DPS champs, Katarina etc. Other roles Dominion has many roles, but these are the main ones. If I find that a different role is particularly good I’ll add it. (An example of a unique role is ambusher, where usually a trapper will hide in a bush and kill whatever comes by). Closing words This guide is now outdated and won't be updated recently. Thanks to you all who supported me during the creation, if you really want this more I can keep it up to date, but I won't be adding almost anything till then. Dominion is a fun game mode with lots of action, and I hope you enjoy it as much as Riot wanted you to. It was a pleasure writing this. My name is Bachoru, and this was my Dominion Tier List Guide. Category:Blog posts Category:Blog posts